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Ch. 12: On Temple Fell
(Return to Arheled) The cold March day was overcast, but the memory of yesterday’s warmth lingered like a smile beneath the face of nature. A fresh strong-smelling wind blew from the NW. Brooke’s car pulled into the library parking lot just as Forest was locking up his bike. “Hey, Forest!” said Bell airily. “Hi, Forest.” smiled Brooke. “You have any trouble with your mom?” “Nope.” said Forest. “I told her a group hike was going on for half the day. She won’t expect me back till supper.” “Wow, great minds think alike.” said Bell. “Little minds do too, my sweet.” “Shut up, you’re mean.” They pored over Bell’s copied map for a little, decided they didn’t need to look at the library one and then got in Brooke’s car. Her plan was to park up the street at one of her favorite swimming holes and hike over the Dam and so to the mysterious mountain that had haunted them all winter. It was less than two minute’s drive. North of the library, after the great crescentine loop through the Winsted valley, Rt. 44 bent NW and left the city. A few straggling tenements and a gas station strung out along the widening turnpike, as well as a Kingdom Hall of the Jehovites, but beyond the Coe Av turnoff to Colebrook there was only wilderness. After the last house, opposite Coe, was a branching strip of old asphalt that marked a cutoff loop of road, used more recently as a driveway for a factory: gone now, like everything else along Mad River. Brooke parked behind an island of overgrown ornamental juniper between the old road and the turnpike. It was cold, bright and grey. Now and then a flake of snow fell from the clouds. The clump of white pines amid the juniper was bright green. Everyone pulled on boots and they headed up a dirt road leading left. Cottonwoods hung over it. In a few yards it ended at a concrete foundation; the factory that stood on top had been sheared right off by the terrible flood of 1955, still present in the town’s memory like a shadow of grandfathers’ tales. Snow was still thick here, and many old footsteps led across the foundation. It seemed divided; as they drew nearer Forest saw it was a bridge spanning the furious river far below on a concrete floor; but the end section was gone, and only some rusted girders spanned the gap. Rotted boards stretched across some of them. “Ooh, we’ve got to cross this?” said Bell. “Don’t be silly, I’ve done it a hundred times.” said Brooke, passing nimbly over. Forest followed, and Bell with some trepidation. They stood on a flat surface deep in old snow, but several holes revealed it to be a roof of aged concrete. They climbed down a sloping ramp of ancient plank and scrambled up a very steep and difficult bank, clinging to laurel and grey birch. At the top was a level dirt causeway. “Is this a road?” wondered Bell. “Nope, this looks like a railroad bed. Probably some more of that paved path below Prospect Street.” Brooke said. The rail grade cut through a shoulder of hill in a low gulch with ragged rock walls, grown with laurel and green hemlock. Old snow lay half-melted, and a snowmobile track amidmost was mostly ice. The cutting was swampy and they squashed along ankle-deep. “Down there’s one of my favorite swimming holes.” said Brooke, motioning to the river 30 feet below. They had come out of the cutting and were now on a long curving causeway beside a steep hill on the left. A deep hollow lay between them and the hill. “Not a very healthy place.” said Bell dubiously, looking at the spuming river. Greeny-white water raged over round boulders in a deep ravine. “But I suppose it’s high water.” The grade ended at a round glade where the snowmobile seemed to have turned around. Old footprints led on down a path in a slanting slope, laurel and young hemlock growing spottily. The forest looked blank, grey and brown. They followed the path, with increasing care as the snow was still drifted very deep and hard here. The path curved downward to a knoll of rock and ended at a sheer yellowy-white torrent that roared endlessly over giant teeth of stone. Most of the young hemlocks that had once graced the steep slope were denuded and piled into a crude shelter, long since collapsed, made by some idiot camper on the yellow-needled knoll. “Mad River Falls.” yelled Brooke above the roar of water. “This place is just awesome in summer.” “There’s no path!” shrieked Bell. “My bad, sorry.” shouted Brooke. “We have to climb around the Falls.” They scrambled up a gap in some forbidding dark rocks and emerged on a shard of flat ledge under young pines: another shard of the grade, washed out in 1955. A ragged wall of rock fronted it. Ahead there was no further progress: for raging down the rocky floor of the old cut, Mad River roared, pouring from a pipe at the far end and plunging down a slash in the cutting’s floor, down over the Falls. “Do you even know where you’re going, girlfriend?” shouted Bell. “Afraid not!” Brooke yelled. “Up here.” said Forest, who had gone back to the place they’d climbed up. A narrow steep bank led up a break in the wall. They made it up with some effort, but all three were nimble. The wood on top sloped but not as steep, and was more open, with beech and oaks replacing the pines. “Hey, nice! A path!” said Bell. “Maybe it’s the same path.” “Wouldn’t that be nice. It’s probably some old deer path.” Whether deer or long-abandoned human path, the narrow track wound level along the hillside among laurel and rocks, brown leaves and black earth with skin of moss. Far below like a canyon on their right lay the cutting, almost under their feet. The path curved downward into an open snowfield, and they emerged to find themselves on Mad River Dam. The huge dike, piled with enormous labor from uncounted tons of broken rock, barred the gorge from right to left. It was a steep steady slope of stones, among which wan yellow grass grew. The fresh wind stirred the girls’ hair under their hats. The tops of hills looked over the trees as they mounted. Overhead the clouds were breaking, blue isles opening, and as they picked their way over the snowfield a gleam of sun stared down. “Careful, guys, you could break an ankle here.” said Brooke. But nobody did, and they climbed up the open slope, looking around with delight. There was the cutting, a vertical bar of raging water. A V valley to the left and much lower must have been the former bed. Up they climbed. Pink veins of feldspar and quartz gleamed on some rocks; others were dark blue banded with pink or white. They tramped up a bar of drifted snow and stood at the top. A strong wind cut through their coats. Grey clouds processed along the horizon. Before them on the far side a deep valley lay, filled with a long narrow lake. Strange grey hills rose to the right; to the left was a long low hill, the one they sought. “Look at that tree!” said Bell, indicating a tall spiky pine rising twice as high as its’ fellows from a hilltop a mile off. “That’s a cell phone tower.” said Forest. “It is not!” “You can see the broadcasting panels.” he replied tartly. “They’re disguised.” “Crummy disguise.” said Brooke, looking at the thick brown pole and the spiky fiberglass branches. Behind them the deep gorge opened into the Winsted hills. Forest pointed out The Cobble, invisible against the trees of Spencer Hill save for its’ pines and the hospital below it. “Brrr! Can we get out of this wind?” exclaimed Bell. They hurried toward the nearby left-hand or south end of the dike. Under the hill-shadow the snow was still deep, but old snowmobile tracks packed it hard along a wide ledge, up which a dirt road turned sharply right and ran west under the hillside. It was marshy in places. Sun shone in bright gleams. At one point white pines drew in overhead in a sort of tunnel. They came to a T intersection where the road ended. “There’s a dirt road marked on the map up that way.” said bell, pointing left. “It should take us right to one end of the mountain.” “Yeah, the far end.” said Brooke. They headed up. The road was eroded into a lumpy gully on one side in which yellow-grey-tan mud squished underboot. They climbed up a wonderful rolling smooth slope of striped tan granite and then a deep gully cleaving a steeper slope. At the top they crossed a trench cutting through the forest and came out on a level saddle. The hill above the Falls rose slowly on the left, and on the right were pines on a height topping above the trees. A broad dirt road curved in from the right. “I think it’s this way.” said Bell. “Is that the Fell?” asked Brooke, indicating the height. “Nope.” said Bell. “That’s just a knoll or something.” They took the road that slanted in from the right. Ronnie could have told them its’ name, Rattle Valley Road, once a travelled way between Boyd Street and Rugg Brook Rd, but Ronnie was not there, and Bell’s map had no names. It mounted up between deep mossy banks, meltwater trickling among loose rocks. It was very pleasant; laurel grew on the banks and featherlock pines overhung them. So they climbed out of Rattle Valley and came to a wood deeper in snow, and the road forked. Bell’s map didn’t show the fork. Through the thin maples a spiky level height could be seen, barring the way like a wall far ahead: the ridge of Temple Fell. “I guess this right-hand fork would get us nearer.” decided Brooke. The branch road was smaller, a mere forest track. It passed under green hemlocks and one section was flooded too deep for their boots, making a detour necessary. They came out of the hemlocks into a wood of open pale grey beech and oaks, grey and brown. The road took them over a sloping knoll. As they mounted the sun came out, and the forest glowed, bright gray trees and shining brown leaves. Hemlocks crowned the knoll. The sinister height was long hidden by trees. Beyond lay a higher knoll. At the top of this, however, the road bent right and plunged down a farther slope, back into the river gorge. “I think we’d better leave the road.” said Bell. They headed farther up onto the knoll, leaving the road behind. Soon they found they were following a faint jeep track, two dim dents in the black earth made by repeated ATVs. They followed this under older and thicker hemlocks. The track made a great looping curve and left the hemlocks. A slight descent lay ahead, and then there rose formless brown slopes, which could only be the feet of Temple Fell. But between them and it was a row of trees blazed yellow, and on them yellow signs that said: Public Watershed, Keep out, as well as sundry other stern warnings. “Um, guys, I think we better not go any further.” said Bell. “They cannot bar Temple Fell against us.” said Forest. Both girls looked at him in surprise. “It’s No Trespassing.” Bell said. “We could get arrested.” “Shut up.” said Forest. “Wh…you…” “We are under a prior command.” said Forest. “The Road will not let them gainsay us.” He marched past the forbidding sign. “Come on.” said Brooke. “He’s right, you know.” “Well, I hope we don’t get caught.” muttered Bell, but she followed. The sun gleamed brightly now. Clouds had split and parted leaving a broad sea of blue. The track was delved in old snow, printed with snowmobiles. The bare brown and grey slopes beyond looked quite ordinary. Although stiff they did not seem especially high. A lot of dead logs lay about from logging operations a long time ago. Forest, Bell and Brooke mounted up the stiff slope, following a logging track, and emerged onto the hilltop. Behind them lay the white expanse of Crystal Lake. A knoll rose on the right, and ahead were more hemlocks. It was not until they entered the hemlocks that they first began to feel it. The hemlocks were older than any they had yet seen, thick and tangled, and very green, and somehow also very strange. Their steps slowed and they glanced around, and as they passed deeper into the spaced old pines and the glades of dark sunlight among them, they began to feel the strangeness. Ronnie Wendy and Travel Lane mounted up the cliff, puffing and out of breath. They had followed the Mad River west from the dike until they came at last to the cliffy slope rising out of the river that Ronnie remembered. Up over huge ferny boulders drifted deep in snow they had climbed, and then up slopes where the rocks fell away and they clung to old laurel, and then up cliffs of mossy earth, where no snow had been able to cling, and even the boles of the thick close young hemlocks that stood like greenish poles up from the slope, were dull green with moss. Then the slope grew lesser and more blocky, and there were glades of laurel, and the hemlocks branched like vines right from the roots, and they stumbled out onto a hilltop. Pushing aside dead and living boughs they stood up in a more open area. Then they too began to feel the strangeness of this place. Thick old hemlocks, tangled and ancient, grew in green and silent closeness about them. Farther on they opened, sweeping green boughs fencing scattered glades. But they did not feel like normal trees. It was hard for either to lay a hand on what it was, but their steps slowed and even whispers fell. Despite the wind rushing in the hemlocks, it was silent. A strangeness lay in the very shape of twig and bough, barely there, unpinnable but present. It felt solemn. No, not quite that either, thought Ronnie as they came to the edge of the knoll and went down into a saddle; more like queer. The reaching limbs. The sad grim silent look of the gladed pines. Almost sacred. Lara Midwinter climbed up the rocky head and stood erect with some relief. She had taken the dirt road the topo map showed going up around the SW end of what seemed to be the likeliest hill. She looked around. An open, grassy glade met her eyes, slanting downhill to her right. It was odd, somehow. It felt peculiar. She headed NE, the sun behind her, along the ridge of Temple Fell. Rough, short, groping hemlocks began to close in around her. She paused. This place felt strange. No, this place felt downright queer. The twisted shapes the hemlocks formed threw a vague uneasiness deep down into her. She passed a thick white pine with many dead branches above a solitary rock a couple feet high, glancing up at it warily. But it was stiff and unmoving, and made no sign. As the hemlocks grew deeper, so did Lara’s unease. She found she was following a faint path, now here, now lost, now just a clear space between trees, now a discernible dent in the earth, and she felt she should stay on it. Stars they are falling as the Road calls all them home… '' Old queer hemlocks trailed long dead branches from their boles, reaching like horrible skeletal fingers. The road-trace passed between green young foliage, dipping into hollows. Fallen trees blocked it. She mustn’t lose the road. She mustn’t leave the road. Hurrying now, she passed down an avenue of hemlocks. Ahead, like a gate, lay an open grove. The queerness grew with each step and she slowed. Then she came out on the edge and stopped dead in her tracks. Forest and the girls turned aside from the strange glades, following a faint dent in the earth, as if a road had once traversed along the hilltop. It passed near the edge, and leaning against a young hickory was an odd, flat, oblong slab, standing erect like a marker. Or a milestone. It was about a foot high and an inch thick. Bell studied it but could find no writing on the mossy face. The track went on, under an arching tunnel of dark green, twisted hemlock. It wound out into a glade, walled by stooping featherlocks, grass matted among the oak leaves. On the right the hemlock wood was deeper, darker, upon the narrow hilltop; a queer, tingling sort of wariness began to grow under Forest’s skin. “What is this place?” whispered Bell. “It’s pretty well named.” muttered Brooke. “It certainly feels like a temple.” “It’s not Christian here.” said Forest, gazing around. He felt it growing with each step, the omnipresent queerness, the faint sad unease; he felt it stronger than the others. Something ancient, some power from before the world, something not Christian was in this fell. He felt eerie, but not haunted; not canny, but not evil. Worse than evil. Lone featherlocks drooped long tents of hands to touch and sweep the leaves with reaching green. Cold winds sighed and snarled in the hickories. They came out into a more open wood. Moss grew deep among grey rocks. The sun was bright and cold. They reached a semicircle of stacked rocks. Bell paused but Forest walked past. “It’s only a firepit.” he said. The flat mountain-ridge began to climb. Laurel fringed the trace road. The ground grew lumpy. The sinister lone featherlocks drew in again, huge and tangled and groping. Suddenly they came into a small glade, ringed with hickory and hemlock and maple, and in the mossy grass stood a solitary stone. The top although broken and sloping was flatish, and small rocks were piled on it. “Come on, Forest.” said Brooke, although quietly. “What’s the matter?” “That’s an altar.” he murmered, staring fixedly at it. He forced himself to walk on past. The sun came out again as they passed under a hemlock more twisted and ancient than the others. Hemlocks reached sweeping hands down. Lone hickories stood about, their crooked limbs like clenching claws. The eerie tingling sense of queerness was greater, like unheard wails faint and dreadful behind the world of sight. He stopped. “What’s wrong?” whispered Bell. Forest stumbled forward, over fallen trees and sticks white as bones. The grass was longer and thicker. A wall of grim featherlock lay ahead, punctuated with short gray hickories. A lone hemlock or two on the left. A whole grove of hickories. All leaning inward toward the center of the grove, crooked tormented thornlike twigs held like clutching fingers toward it. He staggered around the corner of a solitary hemlock and stopped dead. Another lone rock stood in the middle of the grove. The top of this was flat. O it more pebbles, chips of quartz, even coins and bits of white coral, were piled, and small slabs of rock stood on end. Orderly. An altar even worse than the other. Eight fallen stones lay by the western end; a ninth, he knew, lay buried in the grass nearby. The sunlight shone down stark and very cold. Only slowly did he become aware of other things. A girl had emerged into the clearing on the far side, where the road trace crossed it and exited through the featherlock wall. She was slender and pale-faced, her fair skin like a star against her dark brown hair and black coat. Footsteps were coming up from the dark woods on the right and two others emerged into the uncanny place, a young man with bronze hair and a sharp face, and a dark-haired girl in a navy blue jacket. The three groups, three, two and one, stood on the three sides of the clearing, east, north and west, as still as the trees on the cold mountaintop, fixed upon the altarstone. Then the youth with the bronze hair moved forward, eyes burning, jaw set and grim, toward the altar. Whether he intended to cast down the items upon it or not, Forest never found. '' “Ronmond, touch it not.” '' Wind fell silent. Sunlight grew suddenly warm again. The low, strong voice, not loud but full of power, froze the red-haired youth in his own tracks. Unseen by any of them, as if he had appeared out of thin air, the man in brown had come. He stood in the center of the clearing, where the faint track passed near the altarstone. He had his brown leather coat open, showing the flannel plaid beneath. He wore no hat upon his silvery hair, which fell about his ears and down his neck, and his short beard made his chin look like a king’s. “You are the six that I have called. Five from the villages. One from Winsted. One from each church. Brook for the streams, Lake for the Two Ponds, Lane for the Road, Midwinter for the Stars, and Bell for the Churches. On this feast of St. Joseph have I called you here to Temple Fell; now tell me, do you enter well?” “All who are here enter well.” said Lara Midwinter. “You are the six that I have called: Forest Lake, of woods and waters, whose gift it is to see unseen and call the uncallable, from Winsted upon the Long Lake: welcome. Bell Light, of the Five Churches, sister of Forest, whose gift it is to waken them, from Burrville, welcome. Ronnie Wendy of finding and following, whose gift it is to reveal and penetrate, son of the hills, of Pleasant Valley: welcome. Lara Midwinter of the stars and skies, eldest daughter of Nine, whose gift is over light and cold, from the House of Midwinter in the vale of Riverton: welcome. Travel Lane last heir of Wayham Lane, whose gift it is to travel truly, of the House of Lane in Colebrook: welcome. Brooke Pond of stream and river, whose gift it is to affine with water, from Winchester Center: welcome in the name of the Road, all six you who serve it. For the Road is returning, and the fourth and final teaching of the world and the stars is come to revelation.” There was silence there upon the heart of Temple Fell as Forest looked at the others of this mysterious fellowship. Lara by herself. Ronnie whom he knew, and Travel whom he did not. His friends Bell and Brooke. They shared a likeness, he could see; a something in their eyes, in the way they looked, a certain way of looking at the world, a sense of the hidden, an appreciation of things. They had all, in one fashion or another, seen the Tree. “Who are you?” Lara said all at once. “Can you tell us your name?” “I am Wayfinder.” the Man in Brown said simply. Travel gave a slight gasp. “Now tell me, you whom I have called, tell me of what you have learned and what you know. “Forest, what are the names?” Words flowed from the quiet boy as easily as water. “''Ando Lemenka is the Long Lake, which we call Highland. Tinda Dillüra is the Little Pond of Crystal. The '' Daslenga'' is the name of the River of Winsted, for angry is he.” Lara gave a little gasp. The sun shone warm and peaceful in the still air, though all around the dirge of wind was moaning on. “''Ars'' the Ash tree, Orvert the beech, Ordrace the soldiers of the house of Birch. Ongorond the box elder keeps watch upon his foe, '' Alwamba'' the alder, and with him are the swamp-wardens, Gromlë the red maples. Malvorn '' the maple is the roadsman of New England. ''Castanë '' the Chestnut is opposed to witches. '' Almba ''the Elm is steadfast against water-rot. ''Orndirk '' the hickory whose virtue is endurance, ''Sedalgru the cedar, '' Warntem'' the hornbeam, brother of elm. Nindello '' the linden brings light into the forests. '' Kerk '' the Oak is king of trees, ''Jarka '' the Gateholder of many houses. ''Pondoupo the poplar is pillar of the forests. “The pines are perilous. Artarn the white pine, guardian of the north. Tarjë Vernolda the Featherlock pine, whom we know as hemlock, who contests the Rider, yet is grown wild and strange. The enemies also, Austrian pine, Dintarn '' the untrusty; the pitch pine, ''Gitcharn '' the chatterer; and most of all the spruces, ''Vardape ''the Norway, friend of witches; ''Ploevard the Blue, unfriendly to men; '' Daurcavard the bog spruce who lures the unwary. These are the names of the trees of the North in their houses and ranks.” “Well have you learned, Forest. Now Bell, recite to me the lore of the Five Churches of Winsted.” Bell tensed a little, but once she started she found herself talking as easily as Forest: “The Five Churches are forts of stone that hold the North against the coming of the Rider of the Darkness, and New Baptist’s shape is the key to their nature. St. Joseph’s is central, and it and St. James point out the ways, for they are brothers. The Methodist church is a marker of the Road, and Old Baptist is a sign of the end. “This is the way that they point: the cross of St. James points to the steeple of St. Joseph’s, and the gargoyles point, one to Cobble Hill, one to Pratt Hill, Sand Bank Cem, and Wallens Hill Rd. St. Joseph’s steeple points to Featherlock Swamp, and Soldier’s Tower, for that is the center of the Five Churches. The four west spires point, three to Temple Fell, one to Street Hill. At the Methodist church is the First Milestone, which on Christmas Eve midnight shows the date of the return of the Road in 2017 and the distance of Temple Fell. Upon the Old Baptist are swinging hammers and pendant hammers, and the carved stern of a boat pointing NW. Smite on the heavens, say the bells of St. Joseph’s; till they are broken, say the bells of New Baptist; but ''Come down and slay, say the bells of St. James.” “You have answered well. Relate now to me, Travel, what lore you have learned.” Travel spoke hesitantly at first, but then more quickly. “Every hundred years since Wayham Lane, the Wayfinder has spoken to the heirs of the Lanes. I do not know what he has said or he has done, but he set the Lane family in Colebrook to guard the Road and to greet it when it returns. This year is the four hundredth since the Wayfinder came in 1611. Winterberry rings our house against witches. Acting on a hint from you, I tracked down the last appearance of the Wild Man of Winsted, on Panorama Hill in Colebrook, and found that he was pointing to the Lost Caves of Colebrook.” “My words, I see, were not in vain.” said the mysterious man in brown and leather. He turned his back to Forest, facing Lara. “Lara eldest daughter of Nine, tell me the lore of the House of Midwinter.” Lara’s clear, precise voice and intense, taunt manner of delivery seemed to ring in the trees of the silent grove. “This is the lore that was passed on to me about the constellation of the Herald, known to men as Orion: “What is the sign of the head of the Herald? The head of the Herald is hidden from view. '' Where aims the point of the arrow of the Herald? ''Through the Heart of the Fish and the Eye of the Snake, '' '' he aims upon the star of the Northern Pole. '' What bears up the Herald, on what does he ride? ''Daslenga bears the Herald, for angry is he; on the river of silver the rider is him.” '' '' '' “You have spoken well.” said Wayfinder. “Now shall I tell you, you who do not yet know, of the history of the world.” The conversation that followed was of the most peculiar sort. To Forest watching it, the Wayfinder would speak a single sentence, and in the eyes of the five others a bright glow would rage for a second, as if they were coals he was fanning into life. Forest saw dim shapes of gigantic images passing in their eyes; images he long had known, for he had dreamed them but he could not always speak them aloud. The Trees and the weeping of the Gods over their dead boles; the Sun and Moon sailing up the skies, the tremendous bending of the world and the slamming of the Doors of Night upon the terrible darkness wrapped with a chain. Slowly the tremendous bequeathing was finished. The flame died in the eyes of the others. They stirred, stiff, as if from long standing. “Tell me, then, you whom I have called, how were the Stars made.” Wayfinder said. “They were made in Daslenga.” Ronnie spoke up. “It flows everlastingly down the Silver Falls.” “There the Gods dipped great pitchers when they went to make the Stars.” said Lara. “And they were set in the sky for signs and for seasons, for singing and for shining; but not to meddle, and never to make war.” Forest finished. “You speak truly.” Wayfinder replied. “The great mystery is known now to you in part. The beginning is known. The ending is known, for we walk onward toward it and it is nigh beneath our feet. But it is not known of the transition. The roads that walk the heavens, and the roads that go to earth. Of these shall we search, as the Road draws near: for I am Wayfinder.” “That’s not your name.” accused Ronnie. “That’s not who you are. That is only what you have done.” The silence on the mountaintop weighed down on them like lead, as all five humans and Wayfinder stared at Ronnie Wendy. But the piercing eyes of Ronnie were not daunted. He lifted the side of his right hand; a pink scar, freshly healed, ran down it. “You bearded me in my own house and taunted me I could not know reality; I lift this scar in witness against you! Ever since we knew you you’ve been playing with our minds, tossing us dumb clues to things that make no sense and are not so! What’s your purpose here, Wayfinder? What’s your game?” Tree and stone and air seemed to lean in, listening. A deadly fear gripped Forest: did Ronnie have the slightest idea of the enormity of what he had done? He wanted to cry out, but he could no more speak than he could fly. The queer eyes of Wayfinder, blue but amber-hearted, seemed as brilliant as if lit from inside; and where pupil should be, was a glow of white. “Do you challenge me, Ronmond Wendtho?” he said, and his voice was very quiet, and yet taunt with power; and the mountain underneath seemed to thrum. Ronnie gave back a full step but did not back down, nor drop his eyes. “I demand to know what you are up to!” “Do you question in your heart the things that I have shown and told unto you? Do you think that all I said has been a baseless lie?” He bent forward. '' “Do you challenge me, Ronmond Wendtho?!” Though he stood twenty feet away, Ronnie staggered slightly. “That is not my name!” Terrible and tall now stood Wayfinder, and a sort of shadow seemed to be falling over the light, though no clouds were near the sun, so that shadow robed him like a mantle: shadow flickering with lightning. Majestic now as a lord of heaven he seemed, and his voice when he spoke rang like thunder. “That is your name. Did you seriously think that you were named after a girl? I gave it you. I appointed you. '' “I am Arheled!” '' The terrible declaration rolled away among the hills like the echoes of a gunshot. Six human youths stared at the being who wore their shape but was not them, still as if all made in stone, only their bright and gleaming eyes revealing life. Slowly the shadow of power was veiled. The sun shone warm again. Before them stood the strange old man who had named himself Wayfinder; but he was mantled now, like a drawn cloak. His eyes twinkled slightly, and when he spoke it was again the rough low voice, quiet, warm and humerous, of the man they had known only as Brown. “Yes, I am Arheled. I am the warden of the Road. It is I who call it and who steer it, though I give it my service; for the Road is not commanded, but can only be guided. Every hundred years it comes into the world, it returns to mortal earth at midnight on Christmas Eve. It comes here. I stand upon it now, upon the print that it has left upon the matter of this hill: for this is Temple Fell, and all who enter here must enter well.” “But Bell said it wouldn’t return till 2017.” said Ronnie. “When they counted back the years to see what time that Christ was born, they missed the date and fixed it about six whole years too late.” Arheled answered. “So this year of 2011 is actually 2017. It is this year, but next winter, that the Road will return. And it is you the six of you who must walk it.” “But this…doesn’t make sense.” said Lara faintly. “All that you showed us, wouldn’t there be ruins or architectural traces of this worldwide Atlantis empire? There’d be inscriptions. There’d be '' some '' kind of trace.” “They are given other names when they are found.” said Arheled. “You forget the world has been ground into powder by two-mile-thick ice, and the rest of it drowned by the fountains of the great deep. And you who put such faith in what the men of science say about the things that they dig up from earth, consider that the Flood of Noe is no longer recognized by geologists. They hold there were four Ages of Ice; they hold that meltwater sculpted all the vast deposits; they hold that there were some submergences, but nothing single, wide and all-encompassing like the Bible’s dreadful words. Denying the Bible, they invent wild mythologies to disprove it: meteor strikes and giant volcanos and mass extinctions. Yet all through Africa and up into Asia, and even along the coasts of the Americas, are ruins for which history has no name: pre-Egypt, pre-Phonecia; pre-Flood, for all they can tell, for if there is no huge layer of mud, who is to tell whether it was before or after the World Deluge? They slap on a label for the sake of reference, but they do not know who built the Olmec ruins.” “But…how does all this square with the Bible?” “Does Genesis say what happened in the time before the Flood? Jared begot Enoch; Enoch begot Melthusala…before Noe there is no divine history.” His eyes grew distant. “Seven thousand years before Christ came down to Earth was the drowning of the world, nine thousand years before this very year.” “Why did you name me Ronmond?” said Ronnie. “And what does Arheled mean? And what is Lara?” “Names made from words in the language that I speak.” said Arheled. “In that speech, first wrought by the Guardians at the bottom of the world after it was bent (and before that I spoke many tongues, but Elvish most, and Elvish is my name, though it has other meanings as well)—in that tongue, Lara means Star, and Ronmond '' is ''Hill, and Wendtho '' stands for ''Road. You are named after this mountain, Ronnie Wendy: Hill of the Road,'' Ronmondíae Wendtho''. For this mountain is named thrice: Temple Fell for the sacredness upon it, and '' Lundnoem Harnda'' the Silent Place, and lastly Hill of the Road.” “And what is Arheled?” “I named myself that in the tongue of the Elves in the ages when Arda was still a level field. For in that tongue Ar means high or noble, while heled means hard glass or crystal. But in the speech of the Guardians Ar ''stands for ''White, and híled ''means warden, protector. And in the languages of Men is a word '' heden, ‘one arrayed in hides or fur or leather’, hided, heden. In jest I have accordingly always worn leather or fur. Not always, of course,” he said musingly, “not when I walked the Winter Train for instance. So I am named Superior silver-crystal, or Noble crystal, and also the White Warden. Yet these are but a taken name; my true name, like my nature, I reveal to none.” “Are you an angel?” Bell asked. “I am venda.” the being answered. “I do not share the angelic nature. I stand alone; there are none like me, nor will be. But I stand upon the side of the Church.” He paused, considering. “But the name arheled is not unique to me. It is the name of the heavenly sphere, the crystal walls that fence in the Worlds, keep them globed that they might not be Void, that Matter might not vanish into the nothingness. At an immeasurable distance stands the Wall of Night. Do you not remember what I showed you? Of the Ship of the World and the Field of Arda?” “No, that can’t be, that’s not right.” said Lara, shaking her head. “Look, Arheled, you may be some fantastic being from the great beyond, but you can’t deny that the Sun does not orbit the Earth.” “How many verses are in the Song, Lara?” said Arheled. “Um…three, I think…” she trailed off as she remembered just what the song had said. “There are five.” said Arheled. “Arrows gold as lightning smiting Sun and Moon and sons; Stone and gas and fire come to being where none was Stars are fleeing outward leaving light and life and love Stars fleeing Herald and woe. On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, '' ''Let all who enter enter well, '' ''On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, '' ''Let all who enter enter well! '' Earth is dark and troubled as the Sun begins to fade Skies all full of fire as the trees all lose their shade Stars they are falling as the Road calls all them home Coming now back here to die. ''On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, '' ''Let all who enter enter well, '' ''On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, '' ''Let all who enter enter well!” '' Arheled’s slow singing was swallowed by the pines, and silence fell. “But…I don’t understand.” Lara said, almost in a whisper. “What happened?” “The Stars rebelled.” said Arheled. “And the sky filled with warring stars, and the Sun and Moon broke their courses and went to war as Noe drifted on his ark. And the Herald came.” “I think I see.” murmered Lara. “But who is the Herald?” Travel said, perplexed. “And what did he do?” “He is the Herald of the Lord of the Cosmos. He comes only when there is need. For evil deeds leave a stain upon matter, and if great enough that stain can imperil the very fabric of reality itself. That is when the Herald comes. With his arrows he shoots disasters to sponge away at the evil, and his Lord pours his own power into him and he then sounds his horn, and the source of the evil is blasted from the world.” “Are you the Wild Man of Winsted?” said Ronnie. “Is Ulmo the same as Ossë?” said Arheled. “He serves the Road, and to me does he bow; I sent him to test you, Ronnie. When you are with the Weird Sisters I cannot reach you. I am greater than they, but I will not war with those who are not openly against me. So I sent the Wild Man; him they cannot stop, no more than they can stop up earth or stone.” “What is he, and what are they?” “What is he? He is Wild. He is earth, and he is stone, and he is many things. He defends Temple Fell. As for the Weirds of the Earth…once they were the slaves of Chaos, but they serve now none, and whose side they stand with is never sure to say.” “Who is the Witch of Winchester?” said Lara. “She is one of the Enemies.” answered Arheled. “When you came to this grove, you felt the Road, but you felt something else as well, did you not? You felt malice. You felt a stain of darkness. And you felt rightly. For this is the First Altarstone, and here in many ages fools and men of evil have come, feeling the Road and offering foul sacrifice, working necromancy and black magic; see the torment of the trees around us, who remember them and what they’ve done. There are witches in Winsted, my children. And some of them know damn well whom they are calling.” Arheled looked up at the sun, which was slanting low into the trees of the hemlock grove. “It is time to be going.” he said. “Daysdeath on Temple Fell is a time of peril. But first, tell me, Bell, why you did not tell me where the Methodist church points.” “Well, it points pretty much west by a hair north, as well as in the other four directions of the compass a hair off. Nothing we know lies that way, unless it points to Crystal Lake?” “It does not.” said Arheled. “It points to something you know not: the Waymeet of the Three Haunts. But that is a quest for a warmer time and cannier days: your first task is to seek the barred grave in the central cemetery.” “I might have known you’d give us more riddles.” muttered Ronnie. “Um, Arheled,” said Travel, “I just wanted to know: why did the Wild Man come in 1895?” “They woke him.” replied Arheled. “When they bored under this mountain in 1894, they roused him. He was meant to defend the Fell from destruction: any threat to the mountain’s structure, he can counter, whatever it be. He would have destroyed the tunnellers. But I was there first. I commanded him. He cannot refuse the Warden of the Road.” “But why a whole year later?” “Selectman Smith needed to see.” answered Arheled. “Alas, he remained blind.” “Why did you call Bell my sister?” said Forest. “Because she is.” Arheled said solemnly. “Bell daughter of Light, daughter of Lake; Forest son of Lake and son of Light, sundered and forgotten one by the other through the malice of the Dragon who hated your family, and suspected you as he suspected others. Even now he does not know just who for sure I may have called. “Now that we have spoken here on Temple Fell, it is time for us to go our seperate ways. But you Six are brethren, and bonded by the Road; should you have need of one another you will find yourselves together. May the Road rise to meet you.” “And the wind be always at your back.” they replied in unison. Lara stepped forward, so did the others, until they stood in a loose circle as people do when holding a conversation, and Arheled formed the seventh. Slowly they held out their left hands until their fingers met in the center. And the right hand of Arheled met and joined their hands. “You are the Children of the Road.” he said. A tingle and jolt passed through each of their souls, and for one tremendous instant each felt the others and their provinces like things seen from the corners of their eyes; and then Arheled withdrew his hand, and crumbled away in an instant into powdery snow, and was gone from their midst. Rather self-consciously the Six withdrew their hands and stood, awkwardly, as if waiting for someone to say something. Finally Ronnie said, “Where did you guys park?” “Um, I parked at the Dike.” said Lara. “No kidding? That’s where we parked.” said Travel. “So your car is the red station wagon?” “Yes, it is.” said Lara. “I must have gotten there just before you did.” “We parked way down by the ruin.” said Brookke. “By Coe Avenue.” “Oh, then one of us can give you a lift!” Travel said pleasantly. “How do we get out of here? Ronnie took me straight up a cliff from Mad River.” “I took the road that climbs around the other end.” said Lara. “Rattle Valley Rd.” said Ronnie. “We came up a pretty easy way, back there.” Bell remarked. “Oh, we’ll go your way then! Let’s get moving.” Ronnie said, shivering a little. “It seems to be a lot colder now, and I don’t want to be here when the day dies.” “So we weren’t lying, then.” Bell said to Forest as they got underway. “Yeah, this is a group and it…” ''Has a grown-up leader. They found the logging track and the faint jeep trail leaving Temple Fell, and all of them felt enormous relief at leaving the Silent Place behind. Soon they were talking animatedly among each other as they marched swiftly back along the snowy roads to the great Dike. They hurried along this, eager to be out of the icy wind. “What do you suppose he meant by a central cemetery?” Lara was saying to Travel. “One in the center of Winsted, I guess. I know there’s two right by Church Hill, but I’d need a map to see which is centermost.” said Ronnie. “And the stupid library closed at 2.” “Guess what.” said Bell as she pulled out the folded and dirty map from her pocket. “Knew we kept you around for a reason.” Ronnie said. They had come to the place where a concrete spillway interrupted the dike, opening on a great sloping gorge hewn through the hill for no good reason save to get fill, curving down to mad River Falls. Climbing down off the dike they crouched in the lee of a concrete wall, poring over the map. “This one.” Ronnie declared, tapping a dotted square near the black box with a cross marking New Baptist. “I’m stopping there on the way home.” “Oh no you don’t go taking all the surprises.” Travel said ferociously. “We’re all going.” At the car they all traded phone numbers and addresses, Travel and Brooke entering them into their cell phones, the others making out lists on torn bits of paper like normal people. Lara had more room in her car so she gave Forest, Brooke and Bell the ride. Ronnie knew the way (of course) so he and Travel went foremost. It turned out to be the same cemetery Bell and her dad had walked through that autumn, guarded by the Ghost Houses. Old snow piles were still high around the loop driveway and the twin houses. Travel looked at the gaudy purple house but Cypress’ car wasn’t there. They parked and clambered over the snow mounds to the soggy grass of the cemetery. Most of the snow was gone, but under the hill it was still patchy white. “What’s a barred grave?” said Brooke. “A grave plot, obviously.” Ronnie answered. “I know there’s two or three family plots in here, separated by iron bars and railings from the common folk. We check those first.” “And what exactly are we looking for?” That was Lara. “An inscription, an epitaph, who knows.” Ronnie answered. “Anything that seems important.” The great maples and white graves seemed odd and solemn in the cold afternoon light. A solemnness lay over this cemetery; not the fey non-Christian sacredness of Temple Fell, more a somber sort of silence. They spoke in low voices. There were several areas separated by single iron bars set in short stones. There was a square area in the lower part with a high metal fence around it. But everyone’s eyes turned as if by instinct to the double fenced plot at the top of the left-hand avenue between the maples. The smaller had a high fence with hollow metal posts and elaborate hooked bars. The larger had a lower fence with a pattern of collonades. An obelisk rose here, and a grey sarcophagus of marble, far too small to have held a real body. Rockwell, the names read. Rockwell, Boyd, '' on the obelisk. It wasn’t until they walked in that they saw the second sarcophagus. Bittersweet climbed in a tangle on the fence between the two plots, casting the smaller one into gloom. Here the solemnness was deeper, sterner, less canny; but still not at all like Temple Fell. This other sarcophagus was of sandstone, carved like an unfurled scroll set on its’ face, so as to leave bare a wide swatch of flat reddish stone. Drawn slowly by it, Lara bent over it and studied the writing. “Just names and death dates.” she said. “What about the other one?” “Anything on top?” said Forest The others all turned to stare at it. The stone was smooth and blank. “He might have a point.” said Ronnie. “I’ve deciphered inscriptions on graves which were worn nearly blank. Sometimes you can feel writing that is too faint to see.” He passed his hands slowly over the stone, lightly, carefully. “Nothing.” he said glumly. “Let’s look at the marble one.” “And I felt almost certain something was here.” Bell was saying. Forest was still gazing at the sandstone scroll. Where the hands of Ronnie had passed, letters were sinking into the stone, curling italic letters like the epitaphs of gravestones. “Guys, look.” he said. Bell glanced over. “Forest,” she said gently, “it’s blank.” “''No, it isn’t.” said Forest. Ronnie whirled around. “Do you see something, Forest?” “Where you touched it, words are forming.” “And we cannot see them.” muttered Ronnie. “Lara, Brooke, one of you run to the car and get a pen and paper. Forest, tell us what you see!” “It’s a poem.” said Forest. “The letters are fading back up.” “Say them!” barked Ronnie. In a dreamy tone Forest began to recite. His small odd husky voice sounded distinct, even awful, in the grim silence of the burying ground guarded by haunted houses, like the voice of one reading out his doom. “Seek the signs of the Hill-fold Nine! '' ''Eleven the cobblestone bears a vine '' ''At noon the Oak on the Skinless Slope '' ''At one the Moveless none could rope '' ''At three is pale on the woodland’s eve '' ''Seven stood tall and prints did leave '' ''Eight from dark pines soon is culled '' ''At Nine the old is in writ bold '' ''The tower turret, the midmost place '' ''Last seek fish in a buried case.” '' “They’ve faded out!” he added in frustration. “Don’t worry.” said Travel, holding out her cell phone as Lara panted up with pen and paper. “I took a video of you saying it.” They spent the next fifteen minutes replaying the video over and over as Ronnie transcribed the strange lines. He wrote it out two or three times, until he had three copies. One he gave to Lara, one to Forest, and frowned over the third. “What does it mean?” said Bell. “So that’s apparently your superpower in action, Ronnie, to uncover and reveal.” remarked Brooke. “Forest was the one who saw it.” Ronnie demurred. “That’s '' his superpower.” “Nine Hills.” said Forest. “Arheled told me there were Nine Hills in Winsted.” “Of course.” said Ronnie. “Cobblestone. That’s the summit of Cobble Hill, behind the hospital.” “Eleven—noon—one—are those the times that we should go there?” said Travel. “Clock-hands.” said Lara. “It’s obvious. The hills are at such-and-such o’clock. Incoming! Wallens Hill at three o’clock!” Bell had her map out. Ronnie seized it, spread it on the stone and drew a big clock-face on it, bisected by lines like a cut pie. “You’re dead on, Lara.” he exclaimed. “Look. Here’s Wallens Hill, right in the 3:00 direction. 11 would point to Cobble Hill. Noon to Spencer Hill. One to Street Hill. Let’s see—7:00 is Pratt Hill; Ward’s must be this low rise right below it. At 8:00. Nine—that would have to be Pond Hill.” “Yes, I follow that, but that’s only seven hills.” Travel protested. Ronnie’s finger stabbed the middle. “Camp Hill with Soldier’s Tower—''the tower turret''—and Church Hill dead in center: the midmost place.” “And that makes nine—but what’s fish in a…” Lara’s voice died. They all looked up. “''Through the Heart of the Fish and the Eye of the Snake…''” “Case Mountain.” said Forest. “Arheled mentioned something called Case Mt. once. Where is that?” Ronnie’s finger came to rest on a long dark wall running south from Winsted. “Here.” he said heavily. “All this. That’s Case Mt.” '' “Fish in a buried case…” '' “No, silly, '' case '' meant Case Mt.” “''Buried''.” muttered Ronnie. “''Buried''…All right, I think we’d better get going. I’m starving. How are we going to do this? Do you want to go all together, or each take a seperate hill?” “I can’t do anything this week.” said Lara. “And probably not next either.” “Me either.” said Ronnie. “Maybe Sunday…” “I think we should split and just do it whenever.” said Brooke. “We came in three groups to Temple Fell.” agreed Ronnie. “But listen, if any of us finds something, call the others or send emails or whatnot. We have to stay in touch.” They headed back to the cars. Cypress came out of the purple house at just that moment, and she and Travel started chatting, and the others were introduced. Lara said she could drop off Brooke and Bell at their car, and then to the library for Forest’s bike. Travel was telling Cypress all about the inscription and Lara was looking impatient, so Ronnie tapped Travel on the shoulder. “Oh yes, we have to be going. Se ya, Cypress!” “Well, the first meeting of the Children of the Road is hereby adjourned.” Ronnie said whimsically. “May the Road rise to meet you.” “And the wind be always at your back.” they chorused. Ronnie drove off with Travel to grab a bite at McDonald’s, and Lara drove the others to Brooke’s car. “I can fit your bike in the back, Forest.” said Lara when they reached the library. Forest mumbled thanks and unlocked it, and they squeezed it in the back. She drove him to Wintergreen Island, a quiet drive as neither wanted to talk.